Posted
by
Soulskill
on Monday March 21, 2011 @02:46PM
from the abuse-of-the-letter-t dept.

adeelarshad82 writes "AT&T recently announced that it will buy T-Mobile for $39 billion. If the transaction gets approved by the government and closes in a year as planned, it will create the nation's largest wireless carrier by far. While this is great news for both companies, analysts believe that it's an awful idea for end consumers for a number of different reasons — from obvious ones, like a rise in rates due to lower competition, to subtler ones, like more selective phone choices for consumers."

"AT&T's 700 Mhz spectrum" came from the selloff of TV channels 52 through 69. ATT, Verizon, and the FCC are pushing to selloff channels 25 and up, too, effectively killing free television (there would be one-half as many stations).

"AT&T's 700 Mhz spectrum" came from the selloff of TV channels 52 through 69. ATT, Verizon, and the FCC are pushing to selloff channels 25 and up, too, effectively killing free television (there would be one-half as many stations).

This would be one of the reasons why the DTV transition [wikipedia.org] is happening world-wide, so governments can reassign the spectrum for other uses.

In the US [wikipedia.org], low power stations are still allowed to transmit, but they know they are on borrowed time, as the international date to end analog television signals is June 17, 2015.

I would argue that AT&T has already abused their near-monopoly position in ways that violate anti-trust laws, and that the whole purpose of the DOJ's trust busting is to prevent mergers and combinations that would result in increased violations of those laws.

The DOJ only has jurisdiction over federal anti-trust laws. And while we may not like it, this does not actually breach any of those laws

This does violate the Sherman Antitrust Act.
Why do you say having only one GSM carrier in the entire country wouldn't result in less or no competition?

GSM is the only network wherein your Iphone can talk and use data at the same time.
I for one am against any more consolidation among huge companies. We have had it in banks, supermarkets, phone companies, we don't need any more. Do you want there to be only one or two banks, one or two wireless carriers, one or two supermarkets, and that's it? If you don't like it you can just not buy any. I want more competition, not less. More companies duking it out so I have choice.

These wireless companies have spectrum licenses. They don't own those frequencies, they get to use them in the public interest. Remember when AT&T bought Cingular? They sold off the old AT&T network and frequencies to Tmobile. They kept the better performing Cingular Wireless network. Why did they do that? They had to. The Justice Department wouldn't let them buy their competition unless they divested those assets. That's fair. MORE competition, not less.

AT&T and the baby bells were all separated out years ago in the AT&T Divestiture. Now, Pacbell turned into SBC which bought Bellsouth and others and finally bought their former parent AT&T, and whopee, they are all back together. It was a 25 year plan, they planned it all, the crooks.
Now they want to take away more customer choice.

Just say no. No to companies buying their competition. No to consolidations that limit competition. Especially where these companies have government licenses. It's just not right.

First off, you missed the sarcasm (even with a link pointing it out). Second, AT&T didn't buy back the baby bells. AT&T castrated itself by keeping what would be the losing business entity with the cool name. Southwestern Bell changed to SBC to hide the regionality of its name, then bought out AT&T (and changed its name again, someone at the top of Southwestern Bell was apparently ashamed of the Dallas roots of the company). So a baby bell bought the momma because the momma was incompetently run (and was under greater regulations while the babies were passing it with fewer regulations). But AT&T didn't reacquire the baby bells, the baby bells consolidated and then committed matricide.

Not that the net effect isn't essentially the same, but the path was not how you described it.

It's ideal for TV. Much less bandwidth limitation than people think. 1000 channels on DirecTV, some of them on-demand, 3-D, 1080p, or interactive gaming. I only use my local cable company as an ISP any more.

Where was that $39 billion when it came to putting up and maintaining signal towers? Where was that $39 billion when it came to customer service? Where was that $39 billion when it came to the outlandishly expensive service?

All this money, and what does AT&T do with it? It's like a slap in the face for their own customers.

Where was that $39 billion when it came to putting up and maintaining signal towers? Where was that $39 billion when it came to customer service? Where was that $39 billion when it came to the outlandishly expensive service?

All this money, and what does AT&T do with it? It's like a slap in the face for their own customers.

Though I agree, I can't help but think about this one detail: Wouldn't they suddenly have all of TMobile's already-installed hardware?

They will suddenly have to maintain all of T-Mobile's hardware, but it won't do them that much good. AT&T's 3G and T-Mobile's 3G use different bands, and the vast majority of phones don't have the hardware to support both. At best, they could offload a little bit of 2G voice and EDGE traffic.

That's not quite the case - a lot of the radios have hardware filters that can't be removed very easily - you'd be looking at desoldering surface-mount components and then replacing them with other versions...and then recertifying the entire thing to make sure you can still transmit without breaking FCC regulations (at least in the States.)

The OpenMoko FreeRunner came in two versions - 900/1800/1900, and 850/1800/1900. It is not possible to change frequencies, and almost the entire phone is open to modification by the user.

That's why a bunch of people think this merger happened. Supposedly it's about a 5-year process to get a new cell site approved by the FCC. (e.g. it's not about money, it's about paperwork delay).

The problem is: T-Mobile's 3G sites are all in the 1700 MHz band. No AT&T handset supports UMTS1700 to my knowledge, so AT&T phones won't be able to use the new tower assets for 3G. A cell site approval from the FCC is not based just on siting - it's licensed for a specific frequency and power level. So the T-Mo tower assets can't just be switched over to a different band.

There is a *slight* possibility it may be easier for AT&T to get an STA to change a tower to a new band than to build a new site though.

As to the negative effect this will have on equipment manufacturers (handset and network infrastructure) - Anyone claiming this will have a significant negative impact on those people is forgetting that there are more countries on this planet than the United States.

In terms of handsets - AT&T has already been in a situation of using bands not supported by any other carrier anywhere else in the world. Any phones for them had to be specially customized for them. Now, quad-band GSM has been common for a long time, but I have yet to see a UMTS handset that supported both the world frequencies and all of the US frequencies. T-Mobile was slightly fortunate in that unlike UMTS1900/UMTS850, some other countries did use UMTS1700. As a result, manufacturers could target more markets with a handset that supported UMTS1700/2100 than one that supported UMTS2100+the AT&T bands.

For network equipment providers - nothing changes. Previously you had equipment for AT&T and equipment for the rest of the world, this doesn't change. AT&T is still at a disadvantage of lacking the economies of scale the rest of the world can take advantage of.

Those wonderful 39 billion don't generate cash when put into more towers, customer service or anything that other wise improves the service they are providing. Where as spending 39 billions to take over a competitor and gain a mess load of new customers does. In short they don't care about anything besides the $$$$$ which shouldn't surprise you, considering they are a corporation and are by nature soulless evil things.

Or as the wonderful Canadian documentary The Corporation [thecorporation.com] pointed out, if a corporation is legally a person, then it is a sociopathic person. It's not that they're actively trying to do bad things, it's just that they don't care if they do evil, so long as it benefits them.

If you couldn't go to prison for crimes, wouldn't you do things a wee bit differently?;-)

No. I wouldn't. I'm not a sociopath. I don't refrain from doing evil because of a fear of punishment. I refrain from doing evil because I have empathy, and because of that, hurting others hurts me directly. It may also harm me indirectly, as people who have been hurt often lash out irrationally, and people whose choices have been constrained often make choices that harm others, potentially including me. Enlightened self interest looks a lot like selflessness .

If you couldn't go to prison for crimes, wouldn't you do things a wee bit differently?;-)

No. I wouldn't. I'm not a sociopath. I don't refrain from doing evil because of a fear of punishment. I refrain from doing evil because I have empathy, and because of that, hurting others hurts me directly.

I don't do evil things to people that i consider good because of empathy.
I don't do evil things to people that i consider evil but who honestly think they're doing good because of morality.
I don't do evil things to clearly evil people (people who do evil and don't give a fuck as long as it benefits them in some way) because of the law, ie fear of punishment.

If that means i'm not as civilized as i ought to be, oh well. Not that it makes a big difference practically speaking, since barring the collapse of civilization i'll behave the same in all circumstances anyways.

Where was that $39 billion when it came to putting up and maintaining signal towers? Where was that $39 billion when it came to customer service? Where was that $39 billion when it came to the outlandishly expensive service?

All this money, and what does AT&T do with it? It's like a slap in the face for their own customers.

Even though a lot of people like to pretend they are forced to do business with AT&T, they aren't. I live in a dead spot on their network, so I don't use them. It wasn't difficult.

Well, they now have all of T-Mobile towers. Putting up towers is not just a matter of money. There are all these people who want cell signal, but do not want towers. So what can a mobile company do? Buy existing towers.

I do not care about the t-mobile thing because I never considered T-Mobile as a viable competitor. For the most part there are two main level competitors, ATT and Verizon. The choice depends on the service level and use. This will not be effected. Below these two was basically Sprin

I have an unlocked phone so that I can actually change my provider if I want to. If AT&T merges with T-Mobile then my phone is locked to AT&T since it requires a sim card to function and I'm pretty sure Sprint and Verizon won't play nice with my phone.

Even though your phone is unlocked there's not really all that much you can do with it. AT&T use frequencies that are different from pretty much every other provider in the world so if you're with them you're still locked in, if you're not you can't switch to them (without a new phone). The only other large supplier are T-Mobile who use more sane frequencies. This allows you to switch to other providers around the world, but that's not much use unless you travel. An unlocked phone in the states only rea

This is the nature of all markets: the big ones buy up the smaller ones until there are only one or two big ones left. Occasionally they collapse and are replaced by others, but the diversity never really expands.Deregulation and competition just doesn't work in the real world.

Some markets do lend themselves to consolidation like this. If you were a hypothetical omnipotent and benevolent Grand Pooh-bah of the cell phone market right now, you could cut costs of cell service significantly by reducing things to a single carrier, and then sell the service at cost. But instead, we have profit-driven corporations, who want to cut the costs but keep the prices at their current higher (and thus inefficient) price.

Other markets don't consolidate as easily, which is why, say, plumbers aren't all working for a handful of big conglomerates.

I know that moderators have a soft spot for cynical comments, but I disagree. I think there IS competition in the US mobile market. This merger, however, will be another big blow to it, as T-Mobile has recently been an innovator in the space. T-Mobile brought European-style contract-free plans to the US, encouraging the use of unlocked phones. It also was the most vocal and earliest adopter of Android.

What the US mobile competition has shown me over the years is that consumers are not solely concerned w

The only thing I am hyped about is a faster transition to 4G. AT&T's network is crippled in major cities, with 4G and 3G network speeds should increase over time with the load being split across both spectrum's given people move to 4G. There are good things and bad things, I don't think AT&T will hike rates because they are still competing with other carriers just not GSM carriers in the US.

Verizon will start looking to gobble up Sprint. Please somebody who knows more about this sort of thing tell me why this can't happen, because that would be f'n horrible. As far as why THIS merger is bad for consumers, well yea is there even one reason why it's GOOD for consumers?

I would think that Verizon might at least wait to purchase Sprint because Sprint is trying to make a-go with WiMAX rather than LTE for their 4G technology. I also don't think Sprint has much to offer Verizon in terms of gained voice/data coverage with respect to 2G and 3G.

At least with respect to T-Mobile and AT&T, T-Mobile will bring a lot of infrastructure that AT&T wants (towers) because of the inherent weaknesses with GSM in populated areas. This should increase voice quality as well as help to

AT&T shareholders just watched their management pay way too much for T-mobile. T-mobile and AT&T employees are both now extremely fearful for their jobs, as there is almost 100% overlap in most markets in everything but customer service call centers. This goes all the way up the management chains.

This is less like "joining forces" than conquering your neighbor by buying his mortgage from the bank for double the house's value, then throwing him and his kids and your wife out on the street.

I had AT&T years ago; could never get a signal inside my house. I finally switched to T-Mobile; no problem getting a signal inside my house.

If I want GSM (so that my phone will work in the rest of the world when I travel (right?)) then I either have to have AT&T, T-Mobile, or one of the MVNOs that operate on their networks. I fear if AT&T dismantles the T-Mobile infrastructure that I'll be back to not getting any signal inside my house. Is my fear justified?

I don't think they are going to reduce their infrastructure... however, I refuse to be an AT&T customer, my contract is up next month, so may be moving over to Verizon. T-Mobile's customer service has always been a lot better than my experiences with AT&T.

If company A and company B (and Company C, etc) produce the same product with the same quality for the same price, and any changes are mirrored immediately, as if they planned it out beforehand, they are de facto a price fixing consortium, a type of monopoly.

The USA is already a backwater for GSM service. I pay too much for AT&T, there is no competition on price or features, and now what little pathetic choice I have will be taken away. I don't want crappy proprietary technology, I want to be able to use real mobile phones that I can take with me anywhere in the world. Barring Japan and Korea, for some reason.

Let's see. You have four healthy players in a huge market. One buys out another to become the biggest. Now we have only three choices. Less choice leads to less competition. Less competition means they don't have to work as hard for our filthy lucre.

Thanks, captain obvious, for this insight. Stuff like this should be so obvious it could be used on a "voting permit application test" if we ever wanted to truly root out the potential voters so brain dead that they can't be trusted with the franchise...

How about asking why there are only four major carriers and why the smaller ones never get big?

Everyone's griping about AT&T (which I do as well) but no one wants to focus on what the real problem is. AT&T's problems are due to not being able to get enough bandwidth and towers to support their customers. People gripe about this even with the other carriers. (Honestly in my area AT&T is much better than Verizon). Simultaneously most people want not just local coverage but national coverage.

Both Sprint and T-Mobile have been losing subscribers by the bucketloads (only last quarter did Sprint finally turn the corner). The balance sheets of both companies bleed red ink. Sprint's story is especially tragic: they completely bungled the NEXTEL merger, which should have guaranteed them "second place" status. Sprint's heavy investment in WiMAX (via Clear) may only be a long-term win IF the equipment they purchased can be rolled into an LTE deployment as easily as it has been clai

I'm a Tracfone customer (it's the cheapest option by far for a basic phone with texting), and my current SIM card is locked into T Mobile, which has horrendous coverage in this area (Rochester, NY). My last Tracphone was locked into AT&T, which had very slightly better coverage in NY. Even Verizon has very poor coverage in a very large portion of NY. The only good thing I can see coming out of this acquisition is if AT&T combines T-Mobile's coverage with their own and my Tracphone can use both ne

As one of the nation's largest union employers, this bodes well for those who support unions [bizjournals.com].

This also bodes well for those in the seciton of the Venn diagram who both hate unions [redstate.com] and think that AT&T sucks [facebook.com]. They have a brand new outlet to scream about how lazy union workers are responsible for AT&T's sucky network and poor customer service and are going to ruin the T Mobile experience.

Social relations are replaced by market relations so instead of each person having equal freedom intrinsic in his existence, money itself becomes a measure of the decisions a person is able to make. They've got billions of dollars and you probably have only a few thousand.This is the meaning of freedom created by the marketplace.

How do these acquisitions typically work? At any point, is there a chance for the public to register the concerns with the regulatory bodies?

I signed up with T-Mobile at the end of last year when I bought a Nexus S. T-Mobile has been great and I love that I can tether my laptop to my phone (or create a wifi hotspot) without having to pay an extra fee. AT&T is notorious for not allowing this and for having ridiculously low caps and I'm worried that once AT&T takes over, I'm going to lose this capabil

Let's see. Everyone yells at AT&T because they can't provide the coverage and bandwidth iPhone users need. AT&T tries to install more towers but ridiculous levels of regulation and red tape either limit their ability or make it take such a long time it's the same thing. AT&T sees a competitor with towers who is losing money and wants to sell. AT&T buys said competitor as the only way to provide the support customers demand.

I've had both AT&T and T-Mobile in the Washington DC area. T-Mobile had less areal coverage, but when your phone had minimal signal, it typically kept it and didn't drop your call. AT&T has more bars in more places, but using those bars to make a phone call is always a crap shoot - you can have what looks like a strong signal and get kicked off anyway, or be unable to connect at all.

Much of this experience was before the iPhone - AT&T just got worse after that.

Even back when iPhones were the only real smartphone in town, I held off because I didn't ever want to to business with AT&T again. The reason I resisted the Apple siren song was because AT&T service sucks, and they have no respect whatsoever for customers.

I was glad I had when the Nexus One came along, because I think it's better than an iPhone anyway, of course. I've also been very happy with T-Mobile's service. Now I see the Death Star approaching, and I know my happy little world is probably doomed.

With this merger, we should finally have quality GSM coverage in the United States. I will bemoan the superior T-mobile customer service, but I had to switch from T-Mobile to AT&T when I lived on the Pacific coast for coverage. The fact is that there isn't really room in the US for two GSM carriers.For those who think AT&T could have just expanded its coverage, go look into the issues every carrier is facing in San Francisco where new towers face "OMG - the Radiation!" from the residents. Buying T-mobile was the best realistic way to expand coverage.

Or if you finish the two year commitment with your phone and decide not to upgrade, the bill goes down as well. I'm going to miss T-Mobile and since there will only be one GSM game in town, I'll have to get a CDMA phone to replace my G2.

I'm a t-mobile customer, and I for one DO NOT like the idea of the merger... I will have poorer service, higher rates, and less selection on phones... But then, I'm just a customer and my opinion doesn't count.. does it...

As an AT&T customer that specifically chose AT&T over T-Mobile and Verizon (I was leaving Verizon due to terrible customer service and Sprint was not in my area at the time), I feel like it's worth reminding people that the service is largely dependent on your area and that as a re

There is. The problem is that just because they CAN do something, doesn't mean that they WILL. AT&T has powerful lobbyists. There is also (unfortunately, in this case) a powerful anti-government movement in this country right now. They would prefer to let companies (especially large ones) do what they want.